The Grouchy Editor

I’m not sure why, but something that Hollywood used to be pretty good at — the moody, psychological thriller — seems to have migrated south of the border.  It’s been 14 years since M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, and those of us who prefer an O. Henry twist to special effects and gore have had to get used to reading English subtitles.

And so we have The Hidden Face, a Spanish-Colombian production in which a rippling pool of water in a sink is more significant than any number of bloody hatchets — and way more entertaining.

Adrian (Quim Gutierrez) is a rising star with the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra, a young conductor whose good fortune does not extend to the women in his life.  When his live-in girlfriend (Clara Lago) goes missing, Adrian finds solace first in alcohol, and then in the waitress, Fabiana (Martina Garcia), who serves his drinks.  But the police are suspicious, and so is Fabiana when things start to go bump in the night at the rented mansion she begins to share with Adrian.  Is there a ghost in the house?

The Hidden Face is short, sweet, and satisfying, like an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents with South American scenery and South American nudity.  There is nothing profound about it, but it sure beats bloody hatchets. *          Grade:  B+

*  Note:  Beware the trailer for this film, which inexcusably reveals a major plot twist.

Director:  Andres Baiz   Cast:  Quim Gutierrez, Martina Garcia, Clara Lago, Maria Soledad Rodriguez, Jose Luis Garcia, Marcela Mar, Humberto Dorado   Release:  2011

                                            Watch the Trailer – If You Must  (click here)

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Cold Sweat is one of those horror flicks in which people constantly do illogical and stupid things — like hiding where the bad guys can (or should) find them, or failing to locate the front door — and in which the plot degenerates from the implausible to the silly to batshit crazy.  But because director Adrian Garcia Bogliano is on top of his game, bringing energy, mischief, and style to his movie, Cold is eminently watchable.

Bogliano has said that he wanted to lace his horror with a little history, reminding young Argentineans that there are real-life bad guys walking the streets of their country:  aging holdovers from a military dictatorship that conducted a reign of terror in Argentina dating to the 1970s.  To that end, the villains in Cold are — I’m guessing you haven’t seen this before — two geezers living in a ramshackle house in the heart of Buenos Aires.

And what sort of skullduggery are these deranged coots up to?  “Catfishing,” of all things.  Locating young, attractive women on the Internet, the codgers lure these gullible girls to their creepy abode, sprinkle a nitroglycerine derivative onto their bodies, and then force them to … solve math formulas on a chalkboard!  (Please refer here to the opening sentence of this review, i.e., people doing stupid and illogical things.)

It’s nonsensical, but if you’re willing to simply absorb Cold Sweat on a visceral level, it’s a fast-moving hoot.  Bogliano knows how to pace a thriller, and visually his movie resembles The Texas Chainsaw Massacre redone as music video.

Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t credit Bogliano with one of the more creative means of getting an actress to go nude:  Apparently, once your body is sprinkled with an ultra-sensitive nitroglycerin derivative, your wisest survival course is to completely disrobe.  I did mention the words “stupid” and “illogical,” did I not?       Grade:   C+

Director:  Adrian Garcia Bogliano   Cast:  Facundo Espinosa, Marina Glezer, Camila Velasco, Omar Musa, Omar Gioiosa, Noelia Vergini, Daniel de la Vega, Victoria Witemburg   Release:  2010

                                               Watch the Trailer  (click here)

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Ben Affleck’s moderately entertaining Argo is the trendy pick to walk off with a Best Picture award at tonight’s Oscars, and if it does, it will be a bigger con than the great escape his movie depicts.

Argo, loosely based on a joint effort between Canada and the CIA to smuggle six Americans out of Tehran in 1980, is a perfectly serviceable blend of comedy and suspense – but no more than that.  The movie doesn’t come to life until its third act, when Affleck, as real-life agent Tony Mendez, has some tense moments shepherding his American charges (posing as filmmakers in Iran to scout locations) through Tehran’s hostile airport security.

Prior to that, we sit through 90 minutes of mostly yawn-inducing exposition in which CIA spooks make plans and Hollywood players (Alan Arkin and John Goodman) crack jokes.  Don’t make the mistake that I did, expecting this film to be a comic thriller, with the emphasis on “comic”; for the most part, Argo takes itself oh-so seriously, with Arkin and Goodman on hand, sporadically, to contribute a few wisecracks.

It’s no spoiler to reveal that big Ben and the Americans win the day.  I won’t carp about the unlikely, nick-of-time developments (pick up the phone! pick up the phone!) that add to the suspense, because that’s what thrillers do.  And I also won’t complain about the climactic chase scene, which reportedly has no basis in reality, because hey, that’s also what thrillers do.

But the epilogue is one of those absurd “everybody stand up and clap” clichés that Hollywood loves to stage – even though, in this case, nobody actually claps.  (Wait, I double-checked; yes, they do.)  For no apparent reason, Ben’s estranged wife takes him back, and Ben gets a macho backslap from the boss.  God forbid they also give him an Oscar.              Grade:  B

Director:  Ben Affleck   Cast:  Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Victor Garber, Tate Donovan, Clea DuVall, Scoot McNairy, Rory Cochrane, Christopher Denham   Release:  2012

                                     Watch Trailers and Clips  (click here)

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As I watched Beasts of the Southern Wild, director Benh Zeitlin’s mystical, philosophical sojourn in the “Bathtub,” a fictional bayou settlement in southern Louisiana, I had two reactions:  1) I thought, this is the kind of film that sheltered, privileged city-dwellers probably love, because it allows them to spy on and empathize with rural “little people” for a brisk 90 minutes or so;  2) I thought, this is the kind of film that residents of the Bathtub — if they were real and assuming they ever watched movies — would likely detest.  There is very little plot, lots of mumbo jumbo about man’s place in the universe, artsy-fartsy photography, and a “can we all get along?” sentimentality.

Oh, and I had a third thought:  The people of the Bathtub would make excellent subjects for a documentary on the National Geographic Channel.  If nothing else, Beasts is a welcome reminder that, between the coasts, America is many things, none of them apartments on the Upper East Side or cop chases in South L.A.

Young Quvenzhane Wallis, five years old at the time of filming, has been nominated for an Oscar for her starring role as “Hushpuppy,” a spunky Bathtub resident who lives in squalor with her ailing, abusive father.  Wallis is very good; she has an expressive face and loads of charm.  But Best Actress good?  Lord, no.  Maggie Smith has nothing to fear.  At least not yet.

Not a lot happens to Hushpuppy in this movie.  We are voyeurs of her poverty-stricken lifestyle in the heat and humidity of the swamp.  But we needn’t worry much about her because, although her drunken father occasionally beats her and her neighbors are all illiterate pigs, these people like each other.  And Hushpuppy is wise beyond her years.  And the Bathtubians(?) don’t much cotton to encroachment by modern civilization, which threatens their idyllic way of life.  So we can thank them for 90 minutes of their time and go back to our apartments and cop chases in South L.A.        Grade:  C+

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Director:  Benh Zeitlin  Cast:  Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry, Levy Easterly, Lowell Landes, Pamela Harper, Gina Montana, Amber Henry, Jonshel Alexander  Release:  2012

                                                  Watch Trailers and Clips  (click here)

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